Thursday 1st September 11

Quite a chilled day, did quite a bit of planning for some future events, both Professor Fiddlesticks and my eco-alter-ego, John the fruit press owner.  Quite a bit of emailing and phoning.

I did go down to see Richard at Country Fresh and picked up several sacks and boxes... and then came home to deal with the materials.  I unloaded a cylinder tumbler of finished compost into two plastic sacks and then reloaded the tumbler completely full of fruit and vegetables, plus hay and wood-shavings from the guinea pig bedding.

I gathered some windfall pears and apples to dry on the stove tonight, and picked a few hazelnuts that Gill had missed.

Later in the evening, after celery soup, cous cous and fresh tomatoes still warm off the plant, Melody and her children came round, as we're doing a Suma order soon.

Monday 4th July 11

I came back from my visit in the morning, arriving back at about 1pm, in time for lunch and sorting out some assorted paperwork. I was glad to have had some space and time to read two complete NewScientists, mainly on the train.

I dealt with some stuff in the garden but didn't do much, but got ready to attend the LETS AGM, although I didn't have a lot of preparation to do as Melody had got it all in hand.

I got to the Seahorse at 7 at the same time as Melody.  We'd ordered a buffet, but as the management of the hotel are seemingly changing on an almost daily basis, and the current bar person was only on her third day, there was no buffet.  So Melody popped to the corner shop and bought a handful of snack-type things which would have to suffice for the buffet... a large pack of 'onion-ring' crisps, some olives, Bombay mix, and some muffins. The AGM was fairly poorly attended, although great to see Geoff and two new members Carol and Andrew.  All four core group members were there, and later, Melanie arrived.  Melody got us through the AGM with humour and efficiency.  We had the snacks.

I stopped by the Edible York Barbican bed on the way home and did some weeding and picked some peas and courgettes.

When I got in I tried to work out how I'm going to get to my gig in the morning, over to Leeds but then a bus or a taxi to Old Farnley?

Thursday 30th June 11

Gill came to wake me up at 8.30 as she was going in a taxi to school, with our youngest to drop him off at school, and with our eldest, who was being taken for a day out to explore Selby, getting there by bus.

At 11 I set off to see Melody the funding advisor at CVS, in the rain which had started just before I set out.  I'd booked to see her with two York in Transition projects in mind, the Thermal Imaging Camera one, and the more difficult Cosy Homes idea, about how to persuade private landlords to insulate their properties.  We had an hour's chat and she helped me understand a bit more about how to take these projects forward.

I called in on my opticians as they'd written to me telling me I needed my annual check up, and I was pleased to get an appointment for 6pm tonight.

I put 2 cheques in, collected some squashed lemon halves from the lemon juice stall to add to my compost and collected a big bag of maybe 50 Chiquita Mini bananas from Country Fresh, plus an avocado, all for £1. Then from Freshways, a sack of mixed compostables including some orange tomatoes which were in good enough condition to make soup out of.  So after lunch, I made soup.  I used one onion, one potato, 10 orange tomatoes, some basil and bouillon.

I had some loganberry juice leftover from Gill freezing a load of loganberries, so I soaked some dried apple rings in it and they soaked it up, and I re-dried them, making 'loganapple rings'. I also prepared and laid out for drying about 34 tiny bananas.

I wrote up the Melody info and sent it to YiT Thermal Imaging people.

At 5.15 I headed to Millers Yard as Dylan had asked me to pick up his halved oranges, after which I went on to the opticians. I was very pleased that I don't need glasses yet, although my eyesight is slowly getting worse.

Home, quiet evening in, although the internet went down at a crucial time, so Gill and I did a diary check, which was good as she hadn't got all of my summer bookings in her diary.

I am very intrigued by what I'm seeing in my 'Feedjit' thing, which tells me where blog-visitors are coming from and how they arrive.  At the moment, and over the past few days, I've been having a lot of visitors from Sri Lanka, many of whom are entering a search term 'Do low carbon lifestyles lead to discomfort of the people' and similar.  I think someone must have set a project or essay title with something like that, but I'd love to know! 

And the answer is 'no', my low carbon lifestyle is quite comfortable, although things like public transport need a bit more thought and planning than just jumping into a car.  And, mentally, I feel good about it.  I feel that I'm doing the right thing.  I feel that the resources I'm not using are being made available for others.  However, it does sometimes feel like a bit of a lonely furrow I'm ploughing, as so few people in the West are taking the issues seriously.  For the vast majority, it is 'business as usual' even though many people are warning of a forthcoming climate emergency.  We'll see.  Time will tell whether I'm doing this in vain, or whether people like me will be hailed as the heroes who cared enough to try to do something about it.  Thing is, I won't be around to know the answer, as I'm over half-way through my life and might have, at best, another 30 or 40 years to go.

Wednesday 15th December 10

I had intended to go to St Nicks today and help with some coppicing, but Gill wasn't feeling too brilliant so I decided to stay closer to home and do some work in the garden, chainsawing and compost bin filling, harvesting artichokes, tidying.

I popped round to the bread shop, and after lunch went into town to put in a cheque and find a 'seasonal gift' for the family.

I came back via Richard at Country Fresh, and made a really good nutloaf, with equal amounts of breadcrumbs and grated parsnip.  I also put all the dried red and yellow pepper in the liquidiser goblet and reduced it all to dust, sieved it so that I had a bowl full of sweet pepper paprika.  Melody came to pick up her Suma order, so I gave her a jar of the paprika as a seasonal present.  She gave us a bag of foraged nuts, some jam and chocolates.

The nutloaf was delicious.  I zoomed into town after tea as I wanted to attend the York Green Party AGM at the Guildhall.  I enjoyed this.  Then I visited Anna as she hires out TENS machines and I borrowed one for Gill.  However, I'd asked on Freecycle about one and I had an offer there too.

I enjoyed a science programme quite late into the night, and a nice facebook chat with my friend Lisa.  She is fun.

Thursday 9th December 10

A milder day weather-wise, so it was cold but not bitter.  This meant that I was able to go and do some work in the garden, loading sacks of compostables onto two heaps, and building two logpiles.... a dry one outside the front door and on each return trip, freshly chopped 'green' logs, heavy with sap, to be taken down the garden to sit quietly for a year or two in a tidy pile.

The space between our house and the semi next door, our shared driveway, had become extremely icy and slippy, so I spent a bit of time with the spade, breaking chunks of compressed snow off the concrete and making a less slippery path to walk along.  I worry about Gill falling and injuring herself; she doesn't need snow and ice to do that, so the slippery conditions make it a lot more likely.

I also did a bit of work inside, washing up and hoovering, and keeping the stove going (just the one today), and soon after 6pm, Melody came round to deliver her 12 year old genius of a son to me, and I took my own genius son plus Melody's on the bus down to Cafe Scientifique at City Screen to go to a talk about Dark Matter.

This talk was extremely difficult for me to understand.  The presenter was Tom Whytnie, a PhD student at Imperial College, London, and part of the High Energy Physics Group.  He explained that scientists think that the visible and measurable matter and energy in the Universe is about 4% of the total, and the remaining is 70% Dark Energy, and 26% Dark Matter.  This has been hypothesized by looking at how disc galaxies revolve, and our understanding of gravity.

Tom works at the Compact Muon Solenoid at CERN, the Large Hadron Collider, which smashes protons together at almost the speed of light.  The debris from these collisions might give hints as to what Dark Matter is... but it is unlikely that it will ever be seen, as it is 'dark' and invisible.  Whether it exists has to be inferred from what goes into the collision and what comes out.... and if there is stuff missing, that might be Dark Matter.

However, if these experiments don't come up with some results, it might be that our understanding of gravity is incorrect, and a lot of science will have to be rewritten.  I now understand quite a bit more about this subject area than I did, but my son got his head around it far more easily than me, and at the end of the talk, he asked the first question, which was a really good one, and showed he'd taken in a lot of the ideas.  I felt very proud of him.

The talk overran a bit, and finished at 9.30, the time Gill was expecting us home.   On the way out I spotted the tethered balloons floating above the Mansion House.... nice one James Alexander, not a litterbug!   We went to get the number 6 bus and didn't have to wait that long.  We got back home just after 10pm, and Melody soon set off home with her lad, and we got ours up to bed pretty quickly.

Tuesday 30th November 10

Well a tough start to the morning, going into school and having another meeting. 

This, and another unconnected incident, meant that a 10.30 meeting I was due to have was cancelled.  But it wasn't a vital one, just a social, but I was looking forward to it.

So, I did some more prep for tonight's meeting, contacted St John's again but missed the person who would be interested in the Waste Food Feast idea, and spoke with Briony Pete, who assured me that she'd be able to find the place OK.

I cycled round to buy some bread and get a prescription, and only fell off once.  Then I went to the other Co-op (we are blessed with two both within 5 minutes walk or cycle) to get goats milk, but there was none.

So, apart from these excursions, a quiet day. 

In the evening I got a message to say the Hull Road Planning Panel was cancelled due to the weather, but I was quite glad of this as I was attending the Waste Food Feast planning meeting at 8pm, actually I needed to get there by 7.30, to meet Briony.

I had assumed that G/020 was in G block in James College, which I'd found on the map, but that was a residential block so I went to the info place and the chap in there directed me to the depths of the Mathematics Department.  I couldn't find the room but then was accosted by Briony, who had found it!

I dumped my stuff in the room and retraced my steps to put up A4 posters directing people to the room from the car park, as I was expecting someone from City of York Council to turn up, and possibly other non-University people.  When I got back to the room, half the People and Planet group had appeared.  But no-one from outside the University came... but that didn't matter actually.

Despite not being able to use her laptop presentation, Briony explained about her job, working for Wastewatch, and the Feed the 1000 event in Hull. She explained about the size of the problem: 8.3 million tonnes of good edible food wasted in the UK every year, costing £12 billion in wasted production costs, transportation, storage, and disposal.  This works out at an average of £480 per household per year, and if there are children in the house, the average cost of wasted food is £680 a year.  When it is explained that this is about £50 a month in wasted food, many families do want to reduce that cost, and save the money.   The environmental cost, in terms of unnecessary carbon emissions, wasted resources, other pollution, is enormous.

So, there were some good questions from the students, and the discussion which followed helped us crystallise what is needed to happen next, a preferred option and a 'plan b'. And a long list of people who want to be involved in the organisation of the event.  Briony said she'd sort out a facebook page to help co-ordinate and facilitate communication.  So we all left feeling very positive.

I cycled along to Melody to collect the unsold dried fruit from the LETS fair, and left 2 jars in swap for the little bottle of truffle oil that her son had prepared.  He did really well selling his chili oil, truffle oil and herb-infused oil.

I collected 2 logs in the snowstorm and came home, and watched the More 4 programme on how the British National Party got trashed at the last election.  Very interesting, a good watch.

Friday 26th Novbember 10

Spent the morning sorting out stuff for tomorrow's work in Huddersfield, looking at maps ant train times, contacting the market people... who were uncontactable and didn't get back to me... so I think I know what I'm doing, but it would have been good to have it confirmed.

I did a bit of assorted garden work, despite it being cold, and a visit to Country Fresh, and I sorted out a load of dried fruit for sale at tomorrow's LETS fair. I did 10 bags of 12 apple rings, 2 half pears, two half plums, two bananas, two kiwi slices, two pineapple slices, two persimmon slices... and labelled these for sale for £2 or £1 + Y1.  I also did  quite a few jars of fruit, again for a sterling and Yorky price, or just a sterling price.  I hope they all sell!

After tea I cycled down to Heslington to take the fruit to Melody.  I brought home a small bottle of truffle oil which had been prepared by their 12 year old entrepreneurial son.  He'd bought a 35 Euro truffle whilst on holiday in Italy and had worked out a way of recouping his money.  I now owe him £3.50's worth of dried fruit, which he loves, as a swap.

We all watched a good programme on the science of plants, and after that I had an interesting conversation with both boys based on an incident I'd read about because of a link in facebook, about a man who'd lost £80,000 from the roof of his car whilst driving to work, and a completely dissimilar event when our youngest found a pound on the sofa.  So we discussed the various ethical issues involved with finding lost money.  If you find a pound in the street, nearly everybody would just put it in their pocket.  Would you do it with a £2 coin?  A £20 note?  A roll of notes adding up to £100?  £1000?  Where is the cut off point?  What amount would you put in your pocket and think 'lucky me' and have no conscience, and at what value would you think 'I ought to report this find to the police'?  Obviously there's no 'right answer', it's one of those ethical dilemmas that occasionally people have to deal with.  This conversation led to a discussion about laws, speed limits, drugs, the age you can get married and more.  It meant they went to bed a bit late, but it was an interesting chat.

I did some more fruit later, and had a shave and a bath.

Monday 1st November 10

I knew that I had a load of paperwork to do, so when I got up at about 9am I got busy with sorting through things...  so by the end of the afternoon, I had sent five cheques to four places: Yell Limited, Equity, Cozmic and my National Insurance.  I paid the TV licence over the phone.  I also tidied up all the pea beans which have been drying on a sheet of cardboard on the floor, and vacuumed the floor which was in dire need of it.  I got a couple of telephone enquiries and other interruptions.

The assorted payments have left my Fiddlesticks account severely depleted, so I really have to do some more invoices... I have a few outstanding, as I really hate paperwork of this nature.  But then mid-afternoon, something amazing happened... I got a phone call from an organisation I've been very interested in for a while, which is headed up by a woman I really admire, and it looks like I'll be able to meet her next week, and explore whether I can get involved in what they are trying to do.  This is a potentially important development, but could also amount to nothing.  I'm loath to give more information as I really don't want to do anything to prejudice the outcome.  But I'm very excited and pleased.

On my way back from town (with cheques) I took advantage of a 'freegan' situation; someone had dumped a bin bag with some interesting things in -  a fresh, uncut pumpkin, a bag of mushrooms, in good condition, several unopened jars of jam and other things, two heads of garlic.  There were some opened jars of things which I'll not use... the contents will get composted and the jars washed out and re-used or recycled.  But I had the mushrooms for tea, with some garlic, and the last of the pumpkin mix which Gill had made pasties with yesterday.

During the evening I enjoyed a LETS meeting, attended by Melody and my old friend Sue Hulbert.  At the end of the meeting, Liz Sibthorpe came along and as she's moving away from York soon, she was handing over the YorkLETS archives, which the four of us looked through... with stuff all the way back to 1993 when we started.  I was the reluctant recipient of this archive.  It'll sit in my loft until someone else wants it.

I had a good chat with Sue afterwards and got back at 10pm, and got hot water on the washing up, which I did interspersed with Scrabble on facebook, blog, and working on the LETS press release for the Christmas Social on 27th November. 

Thursday 22nd July 10

Another fairly quiet day during the day, but a most enjoyable evening.

Gill and Linda went out to meet their older sister Jane, so the three of them had lunch together, which is the first time they've all been out together for as long as any of them could remember.

I did some stuff on the computer, did the washing up, watered the plants in the conservatory, visited Woodlands with my volunteering application, and then at 1.30, Melody rang me and asked me if I'd help put up the gazebo she'd got out of a skip (which they call the 'special shop') on the playing field at the Outgang in Heslington. The Lord Deramore's year 6 had their last day today and there was a bit of a party fun time planned on the Outgang, so Melody wanted to put up the gazebo and couldn't do it with just Natalie, so asked me!

I got down there at 2.10 and we spent over half an hour having fun putting it up. I picked up lots of beer bottles and cans and almost filled my trailer, but on the way home i found a butchered tree so put logs on top, which stopped the bottles and cans rattling so much.

I had a short time in the garden at around tea time, and then went out to The Duchess for an interesting gig with four acts all wanting to impress the BBC.
tbc

Monday 12th July 10

A very relaxing morning, much needed after a busy weekend.

But the afternoon was more active... at 1.45pm I cycled down to the National Centre for Early Music off Walmgate where our youngest son was performing with his class in a musical journey about Sir Francis Drake. Gill had cycled down earlier to secure tickets and I arrived with 5 minutes to spare, and sat with Gill . As well as singing, our son played the figurehead at the front of the ship, when the group were in their 'ship' configuration. They did a lot of moving around, and sang from the back of the hall, sang in 'rounds' and played instruments as well as doing some basic acting. There was a narrator and a chap playing a harpsichord. It was very good and quite moving to see these 10 and 11 year olds doing such brilliant work.

I cycled back quite quickly, picking up two sacks of resources from Freshways. I noticed that these contained quite a few chillies, and Melody and Simon's son had asked me to tell him when there was a good haul of chillies, as he wants to experiment with fermenting them to make a sauce. So I rang them and was told that he'd come round between 5.30 and 6 to help sort them out.

I then filled the medium Compostumbler completely with the sacks of material I collected a day or three ago. I came up the garden just in time to meet the chilli expert and we spent 25 minutes sorting out four bread-bags full of assorted chillies from the other unwanted, unsold stuff. He was delighted.

I came in for tea and then had a fairly quiet and relaxing evening... watched a programme about Concorde, and dealt with two unloved but very edible pineapples. And had the stove on, so I could wash up in really properly hot water!

Thursday 16th April 09

Woke late and wasn't feeling too brilliant, drippy nose, headache and blocked sinuses. However, this was the first free day to sit and write, so wrote my Easter blog!
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/green-living/2009/04/green-man-on-dirty-coal.html

Melody came round whilst I was doing this and her son played with ours. So writing was a slow affair as there was chatting and coffee drinking... but by 1pm I was finished. I got dressed and had a late lunch. Lit the stove and did a big wash up and at about 5pm went to the allotment and dug out lots of dandelions and cut back brambles, ready for spuds going in. Rebuilt a pallet compost bin and pulled out loads of sticks from the stuff which came out of it, putting these back into the new pile.

Came back at nearly 9 and reheated the food which Gill had left for me... potatoes, peas, squash and a slice of quiche followed by lemon cake. Yummy.

A very quiet evening.

Tuesday 6th January '09

Quite an early start, as taking our youngest into school at 8.30ish... cycling in was really cold but no ice on the roads, fortunately.

Had a busy morning.. lots of paperwork to do and admin which hasn't got done whilst the boys have been at home over the holidays. So registered to do my tax online and a variety of other things, including jarring up dried fruit. But also played some Scrabble on Facebook! Gill went for lunch in town with Alison and Melody.

Kept the stove going all day and toasted crumpets for lunch, well, part of lunch. The day went oh so quickly... and before I knew it, 3pm and time to cycle down to school again and pick up out little 'un. The Green Thumbs assembly about the Blue Peter Mission Nutrition Bring and Buy Sale is on Friday so chatted with Julia about when this is going to be practiced. fortunately I don't need to be there... just to attend the assembly.

I did a little bit of logpile management and came in to have tea... spaghetti and tomato/broccoli topping, all done on the woodstove.

Then off out to the Tang Hall Community Centre to facilitate the Hull Road Ward Planning Panel meeting... dealt with just two applications but it was good to be with Andrew and Stephen who are both more knowledgeable than me about planning matters. Carolyn didn't turn up... I rang her when I got back and she'd fallen asleep and missed the meeting. She was glad I'd checked on her, as she's usually very reliable and knew that if she'd fallen or something, I'd be able to alert someone or do something... although thinking about it, not sure what.

This meeting took an hour and I came home via the cycle track to pick up sticks for kindling and logpiles.

Boys finished a game of Yu-Gi-Oh and went to bed. I typed up minutes from last night's LETS meeting and sent them off.